In 2024–25, there were 78,100 Medicare-subsidised palliative medicine attendance and/or case conference services provided to 15,900 people (58.4 people per 100,000 population), an average of 4.9 services per person.
For these services (Figure SER 1):
- Almost 4 in 5 (78%) of the people receiving services were aged 65 and over, including 25% for people aged 85 years and over.
- The number of services per person was similar for all age groups between 25–84 (4.3–5.6 services per person) and considerably lower for people aged under 25 years (1.3 services per person).
- More than 5 in 6 services (85% or 66,200) were for attendances in a consulting room or hospital, 3.6% (2,800) were for attendances in other settings (such as in a person’s place of residence) and 12% (9,100) were for case conferences.
As highlighted in Figure SER 1, there were regional variations in the number of people receiving these services. For example, people living in Major cities were almost 5 times as likely to receive these services as people living in Remote and very remote areas (63 and 13 per 100,000 population, respectively). It should be noted that the vast majority of employed palliative medicine physicians and nurses work in Major cities. For further details, see Palliative care workforce. Figure SER 1 also shows state and territory variations in palliative medicine attendance and/or case conference services.
Information on Medicare-subsidised palliative medicine attendance and/or case conference services at the Primary Health Network (PHN) level are included in Table 2 and the PHN palliative care services information chapter.
